


I'd Rather Die

by JanuaryCafe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-27
Updated: 2012-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-30 04:51:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryCafe/pseuds/JanuaryCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU, non-brothers. How do you want to spend your last moments? Dean always thought his would be with Sam. Two years ago, Sam disappeared from his life. Now he's back and won't say why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Rather Die

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on one other site. I edited a little and am re-posting it here. It was an idea that wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it! If you did (or even if you didn't), let me know. :)

 

_"There are things we don't want to happen, but have to accept. Things we don't want to know, but have to learn. And people we can't live without, but have to let go." – Criminal Minds_

* * *

People always think the world is coming to an end. It's always a different year for a different reason. The Mayan calendar is running out – the world's ending. The year 2000 is coming up – the world's ending. The Bible says so – the world's ending. But what is often much worse is when your own world comes to an end. I bet it hurts a hell of a lot more than a meteor to the northern hemisphere.

" _Hey, Dean. What would you do if you were going to die tomorrow?"_

It was a question I was asked a long time ago by someone I used to love very much. I never did know what to say to it, despite the apparently simplicity of it. A day wasn’t enough time to do a lifetime’s worth of living. The trick was to narrow down on the one thing that meant the most, the one thing that, perhaps, was the best thing to be doing when it all ended.

 Now, there in a little Italian restaurant that served stale bread and amazing rigatoni pasta, I was being asked that same question again by someone else. I didn’t answer for a while, and I let my next bite of steak hang lonely on the end of my fork. It's hard to eat and have nostalgia wash over you at the same time.

"Dean? Are you listening?"

I snapped back into the present, my eyes clouded by the fading image of floppy, soft brown hair and a wide smile that made something sharp wrench in my gut. Ignoring the dull pain, I looked up and found Amanda staring at me expectantly. "What?” I asked, clearing my throat once, twice, “Oh, yeah, sure. I saw on TV they were talking about that. The world ending and all."

I tried for a smile. It never came, and I ate the bite of steak still perched on my fork.

"Me too. I watched the special. They were interviewing people and asking them about what they'd do if it really happened.” Amanda took a sip of her wine, blond hair falling in soft curls over her shoulder.

It was our second date. I'm not sure why we even had a first. The best answer is that she asked me out and I said yes. It’s not a good reason, but it’s the right one.

"So, what would you do?" Amanda asked again.

I shrugged a bit. "What does it matter? It's all over after that, anyway. For me, I'd just like to drink the day away until it ends." I didn’t mean it to be depressing. I guess it didn’t come across that way.

I just didn’t have anything else worthwhile enough to spend my last hours on. Not anymore.

"Huh. That's so boring." Amanda's nose wrinkled a little in distaste at my answer.

And once again, I was being told that I was boring. It had happened before. Several people had informed me that I was not the most interesting specimen that they had come across. I guess that should have bothered me more than it did.

I leaned back in my seat and studied the rim of my water glass. "Then what would you do?"

Amanda's face lighted up a little. "I'm not sure, but something fun. Like, maybe spend the day in Disneyworld. Or, oh! Fly to Paris and find someone who…"

I tuned her out then, as equally bored with her answer as she had been with mine. She kept talking, her words void of any meaning to me by then. I raised my wine glass to my lips and took a sip. For some reason, it didn’t have much of a taste.

"Dean?" The voice wasn’t Amanda’s. It was deeper, richer.

Suddenly, long, slender arms wrapped around my shoulders and a warm cheek pressed into the back of my neck. I choked a little on my wine in my surprise, but I recognized the voice instantly. I'd always recognize it.

The cheek moved and was replaced by lips, soft and moving as the newcomer murmured into the base of my skull. "You still smell fucking amazing. You haven't changed at all, Dean." The hands on my shoulders shifted until one lingered against my chest and the other curled near my throat, familiar warm skin pressed against mine.

"…Sam?" I asked, though I knew for dead certain that it was him. Jesus Christ, it was _him_.

"Yatzee!" was the cheerful confirmation. "Why didn't you ever call me? Heartless bastard." Sam moved himself closer to me, now half on my lap. A feat, considering he had nearly three inches on me, though I probably had 20 lbs on him.

"Hey, knock it off," I murmured. I made a feeble effort to shove him off.

"Um, Dean? Who's this?" Amanda asked uncertainly.

I turned to her, one of my hands placed on the underside of Sam's jaw to keep him away from my face. "Him? He's, ah, a friend from college—"

"I'm his ex-boyfriend," Sam chimed in, lips lifted in a grin that was pressed against my cheek. His kiss was loud.

Amanda's eyes widened. "Seriously?" Her eyes locked on mine, and she must have found her answer there. Without another word, she grabbed her purse and slid out of her chair, marching toward the door in a way I didn't think would be possible in such high heels.

I pushed Sam away from me and start to follow her. I dropped a couple hundreds on the table as I left it and hurried toward the door. I followed her out of the restaurant and she ignored me still, refusing to answer when I called her name. 

_Shit_.

The night sky was clear even with the city lights, and a few stars peaked through the darkness. I watched until Amanda’s form disappeared around the corner.

Sam was behind me then, long fingers tugging down the rim of his blue and green hat over his hair. It was longer than before, his hair. But still a rich brown and I wondered briefly, insanely, if it was still just as soft as I remembered it to be.

"Forget her. What did you see in her, anyway? Seemed like the type to marry a guy for his money, if you ask me. Just dump her." Sam scoffed in the direction Amanda had gone.

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose between my forefinger and thumb. "She's my boss's daughter."

"Oh. Oops."

I half turned to get a look at Sam. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, lit it and raised it to his lips. He smiled a small smile to himself, eyes cast away from me. "Sorry," he said, voice as light as the smoke curling away from his mouth, "I guess I screwed up your life again." He didn’t sound sorry. But he didn’t sound glad, either.

My head began to pound and I felt a little numb around the edges. I couldn’t think straight enough to even begin figuring out what Sam was doing back in my life. "What the hell do you want?"

"Nothin'." He still didn’t look at me, seemingly interested in something happening across the street.

I paused a second, trying to stop myself from asking the question that suddenly and violently pushed itself to the forefront of my consciousness. It still hurt a little, even though I knew I should have gotten over it. So I tried to bite my tongue.

I failed miserably.

"So, you still think I'm boring?" Not really the question most people would ask after so long, but I wanted to know. It still bothered me.

"Well…" Sam hedged, not caught off guard at all. Damn him, not one ruffled feather.

Sam was the man who dumped me because he thought I was boring. We used to date in college. We lived together up until two years ago.

I watched him for a moment as he just stood there, all lithe grace and masculine beauty. His fingers shifted around his cigarette, the long and slender digits casting a shadow from the streetlamp over his cheekbone.

God, I hoped like hell I was really over him.

Then Sam looked up from tapping the ash off the end of his cigarette, the tip still glowing orange and bright in the night air. Light hazel eyes studied me for a moment. "You  _are_ boring."

My jaw ticked and I didn’t retort. I started to walk and pretended not to notice when Sam followed after me.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

"So, you still live in the same place?" Sam craned his head to look at the less-than-modern apartment building that we used to share. "Ah, the good old days." He had that smile on again.

"Why the hell are you following me?" I didn’t look back when I arrived at my apartment door. I didn’t know why I had never moved out. I sure as shit hoped it wasn’t because I'd been holding out for Sam to come back someday. That would be too pathetic. Really pathetic. Really… Especially because was over him.

"What? You're not even going to invite me in for a second? It’s fucking cold out.”

That pissed me off. I stopped in front of my door and turned around to glare at him. "Just get lost, okay?"

Sam ignored me, striding right past me and pulled his hand out of his pocket to reveal a key. He opened my apartment door by himself and held it open for me after he stepped across the threshold.

Dammit. "You still have the  _spare key_?"

Sam's answer was light and cheery. "Guess I forgot to give it back. Come on in."

I did as he said, but grudgingly. Cheeky little bastard.

He looked happy when I flicked on the lights, letting him see the old place. It was basically the same as before he moved out. Actually, it was exactly the same.

He made a beeline for the couch, and before I could say anything, he flopped down onto it, looking happy. "You still have this? Wow. I missed my favorite sofa." He bounced a little and his expression softened. "Jeez, it's like memory lane or some shit."

An image of _before_ flashed into my head. Sam, his hair shorter, sitting on the couch as bare as can be, thin arms wrapped around his legs as he waited for me to come to him. He was smiling then, too, but different. That same smile he always had right before we would fuck each other senseless. Usually on the couch or in the bed, sometime against a wall or wherever we happened to be standing. Wanting Sam had been a constant craving back then.

"Hey, you remember how often we did it here? Look at all the stains." He poked at the fabric of the furniture, unaware of how close our lines of thought had come to one another.

For a moment, old affection threatens to dictate my decision, to make me let him stay for a little while. But he left me, and it was because I was  _boring_. "Get the hell out."

"Oh come on. Let's have a drink." Sam hopped off the couch and made his way to the kitchen, striding around like he never left the place.

"Sam! Enough already." I reached out and caught his wrist, intending to pull him to the door. Surprise struck me off guard when I felt how easily my fingers encircle skin and bone. I let go slowly, searching his face. "Have you lost weight?"

Sam looked down, the lightness from before gone. "Wanna…" he moved closer, and this time he was the one taking my wrist, "check it out yourself?" He moved my hand to the hem of his shirt, slid my fingers up underneath. His skin was soft and warm under my palm. Heat flared fast and hard in my gut.

I jerked away from him, shoved him back a little. "I said enough!"

A smile that didn’t reach his eyes touched Sam's mouth. "Seriously. You still can't take a joke." He shook his head and exhaled softly. "You really haven't changed at all. How dull."

I took a step back, turned away and lean against the kitchen sink, my fingers curled over the rim. "Is that why you left me?" I asked, because apparently I couldn’t just take the hit and let it go. I needed to go another round, it seemed. "I know I'm not the most fun person to be around," I snapped. It was true. I was an accountant for God's sake.

Sam said nothing. I couldn’t see his face. And then I almost couldn’t breathe, and the room felt small and far too warm. I tugged at the collar of my button-up. Suddenly I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want him here, not if I couldn’t touch him. Not if he… not if he felt the way he had back then. I couldn’t watch him walk away, not a second time. But maybe it wouldn’t break me if I was the one who pushed him out.

"Just take your ass and your playful attitude and get out. Go back to wherever you came from, Sam."

"…I'm sorry for what I said."

Surprise pricked me like a needle under my skin. I felt a little dizzy from it and bit hard on my teeth. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Well, I… I came here because I thought you might want to hang out some. You know, reminisce about the past. Guess I was wrong." Sam moved a little closer, and I could hear him run a hand through his hair. He did that when he was frustrated. Or nervous. I could still read him as well as I had been able to back then. But of course, I hadn’t been able to read him so well that I saw the whole thing coming. "It's just that when I overheard your answer to that question at dinner, I couldn't help remembering that it's not that different than the answer you gave me. When I heard what you said, I knew it had to be you."

"You were at the restaurant that long?"

"Yep. The booth behind you. But seriously, even if your answer was the truth, it wasn't the most tactful thing to say to your date." Sam picked at loose skin around his fingernail. His bangs fell over his cheeks, hiding him from me. "I couldn't just sit there and listen."

He'd been there the whole time. I felt struck, like somehow I should have been able to feel him sitting right there, close enough to touch.

"Hey, Dean. Um, do you…still remember my answer?" Again I said nothing. Sam kept talking. "I thought. I thought if I came to apologize, maybe you would…"

He stopped speaking then, and I stopped listening. I still remembered when he left, down to the level of what we had for lunch that day. It was kind of hard to forget the day the person you love just walks out with no explanation except…

" _Sam! Wait, Sam!" I chased after him, pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose as they slipped in the cold sweat that had broken out on my skin. " What the hell? Where are you going? Sam!"_

" _It has nothing to do with you." Sam kept walking, duffle slung over one shoulder, suitcase clutched in his other hand. "I've decided to move out. I'm moving in with someone else. He's a great guy."_

_Something sick curled into my stomach. I thought I might pass out. I thought I might want to smash something._

" _Why?" Suddenly the fight had gone out of me, drained away and left me feeling heavy and broken. He was leaving. Casting me aside. "Because I always come home late? Is that it?" I asked with not a little desperation. I wanted to understand. If I understood, I could fix it. Only, Sam still wouldn't look at me._

_Sam slowed down, turned halfway to me and sighed like I was bothering him, like I wasn't the man he'd lived with for so long. Like I wasn’t anything to him._

_"You just don't get it, do you?" He jerked around then, anger hardening his face. "If you really cared, you would have done something about it without me spelling it out!"_

Spell what out? _I wanted to ask. I was lost. I didn't know what to change to make him stay. I didn’t know what I had done to break it, what I could still do to fix it._

" _Dean, look… I've been wanting to tell you… I just... I'm tired of living like this with you."_

_All I could feel was heavy shock that numbed me to my bones. Finally, he looked at me then. I couldn't read the expression on his face. My gaze caught on Sam's and we watched each other for a second. My heart threatened to beat its way through the bottom of my chest. The space between us shifted and bent strangely, and all I wanted to do was close the distance, get my hands on him again, taste his skin, bend him and break him and never mind the rest. I wanted all of him._

" _Goodbye."_

_He walked away._

_He was gone, and I was drowning._

When I looked up, once again in the present, Sam had his hat in his hands, playing with it and looking at it like he could see what I had just seen. And maybe he had, because the next thing he says is…

"I know what I did was bad. I can't ever forget it."

"I didn't think you'd remember all that," I said to him. I ignored the flinch he had in reaction. "But you wish you could forget, right? Is that it?" So he felt guilty and had come to soothe his conscious over his apathetic breakup with me.

Screw him and his pity.

Sam's hazel eyes seek me out, and I turn away. I can't.

"You're the forgetful one, Dean. Did you forget? We promised to spend our last moments together."

I laughed a little, mostly because it was something to do other than scream. "You’ve gotta be kidding me." My hands gripped the sink tightly, my knuckles as white as the tiles. "I never promised that. Not ever."

The air shifted as Sam came closer. His big hand clasped over mine and then in an instant, his mouth was pressed to my lips. For a quick moment, I let him. For just a split second, I wanted to kiss him back. I didn’t. I put my hand on his chest and shoved him back with enough force that he hit the kitchen wall with a thud. I was breathing hard, and the hand that I pushed him with was curled up tight.

Sam's eyes darkened and he smiled sadly. "Sorry." He picked his hat up off the floor where it had fallen and pulled it over his slightly head. He moved toward the door. The hinges creaked when it opened.

Suddenly I couldn’t make my lungs suck in air, and I began to suffocate. Suddenly it was two years ago and I was letting him go. I knew what happened after this. I could feel the world warp and crumble around me as it happened again.

And I couldn’t do it this time.

I moved forward fast. One hand gripped Sam's shoulder and pulled him back to me as he crossed the threshold, and the other hooked around his jaw, bringing his mouth to mine as I backed with him back into the apartment.

" _Hey, Dean. What would you do if you were going to die tomorrow?"_

_We were lying in bed, him on his stomach and me on my side, facing him. Sam had a cigarette balanced between two fingers, hand hovering over the ashtray, catching the falling ash that he was neglecting._

_I thought about it for a second. My hand stroked lazily over his exposed him, tracing easy shapes into his skin. "Sleep."_

_Sam made a face at me. His bitch face, I thought fondly. "What kind of answer is that?"_

" _What else am I supposed to do if I'm only gonna live one more day? I might as well stay home and just eat, drink and sleep," I elaborated._

" _Man, that's so boring. I swear, you're so dull sometimes, Dean."_

_I frowned a little, annoyed. "Then what would you do?"_

_A delighted smile stole across Sam's face. "I'd have sex until I died."_

_Quirking an eyebrow at him, I shook my head. "That's too much work for the last day on earth. I'd rather take it easy if it's all going to be over so soon."_

_Sam huffed. "Forget you. If you have your way, our last meal would be nothing but a TV dinner."_

_Irritation swept through me. I sat up, facing my back to him. "Fine. Whatever. Have your full course meal of fancy French food or whatever."_

" _Now you're just sulking," Sam murmured behind me._

_There were a few seconds of silence of me_ not _sulking before I felt a painful pinch on my shoulder blade. "Ow! Jesus, Sam!"_

" _Sorry. You've got this scab that's just hanging there. Can't help it."_

_I flinched as the jerk kept peeling the scab. I craned my neck to try and find the thing before he ripped it out of my flesh. I found it and ran my fingers over it. There were more scabs in the shape of scratches. Without thinking, I muttered, "How the hell did I get that?" It didn't take long for me to figure it out._

_Sam blushed a little, remembering that night the second I did. I felt my blood rush a little faster just at the thought. That was a good night._

_I reached for a cigarette, Sam's nails still scratching at my back, though gentler now._

" _What would happen to us?" He smoothed the tips of his fingers over the rough, healing skin. "Will you stay with me when the world ends?"_

_Of course I would. Where the hell else would I go? But I didn’t say it. I couldn’t say it, and I wasn’t sure why._

" _Stop picking on my scabs."_ __

The end of the world didn't come. Not the whole world, anyway. But Sam left that same summer two years ago.

Suddenly, now, we were both stripped below the waist. Suddenly I had Sam beneath me, wrists pinned down over his head and his skin stretching smooth and taut as he breathed in fast and hard. My hips rolled down into his and Sam was arching, the structure of his ribs showing. I wanted to taste every bone, follow the dips and rises with my tongue and teeth. I ground down against him, hard and careless as I thrust inside him. I barely remembered how we got there, and I barely cared.

I pushed in again, not waiting for him to adjust any more, and pulled out only to shove back inside with a quick snap of my hips. My hands moved from his wrists to the backs of his knees and I lifted his legs, changing the angle of my thrusts to get deeper inside him. He bit down on a moan and pushed against me, pulling me in nearly as hard as I was pushing. His back curved when I hit that place inside him, his mouth open even though no sound but harsh breathing was allowed out.

I jerked at his knees again, sliding him closer to me, driving down into him. I hadn't even fully removed my pants. My belt clinked when it hit his skin, the metal sticking briefly to damp flesh before pulling away again.

"D…Dean… God. Dean!" Sam cried out, fingers clawing hard against my back.

My breathing became harsh and ragged, and I couldn’t look away from him. I couldn’t think of anything I had ever wanted more than I had always wanted him. Not a damn thing.

Sam opened his eyes, his lips parted as he gasped my name. "Dean…sorry. I’m sorry." And he looked sorry this time. He looked like his damn heart just broke.

I didn’t say anything, just leaned down and cover his mouth with mine, my tongue licking at his, tasting the tang of the words I couldn’t let myself hear. I didn’t want him to talk, not like that. So I tried to swallow him whole from the inside out, silently begging to him to shut up.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

When I awoke the next morning, Sam was gone. He had left the spare key on the nightstand next to me, the thoughtful bastard. I picked it up, slid it around on my palm. So, again, no goodbye.

The knowledge that yet again I had lost him, and this time without so much as a parting glance, made something swollen and ill inside me snap, and something near rage boiled out. Whether it was at me or him, I couldn’t say. But it burned like a son-of-a-bitch.

I brought my arm back and hurled the key across the room. It cracked into the wall and fell with a clang into the metal trash can next to my dresser. For a moment I sat at edge of my bead, head in my hands like that would help keep me together. I let the seeping anger simmer, and for a second it felt good. But it wasn’t enough. There was nothing to break, no one to yell at, and more importantly, there was no Sam.

I moved to the trash to retrieve the key. I couldn’t leave it there – there were a number of homeless addicts who lived in the area and would take advantage of finding something like that. Coming home to find my apartment had become a crack den wasn’t something I wanted to experience.

I rummaged through the garbage until I found the round-topped silver key resting in an empty six egg carton. Something else metallic glinted in the morning light. It was a foil wrapper. I picked it up and examined it. The name of a drug was spelled out across the front; I didn’t recognize it.

What in the hell? "Drugs?" I murmured to no one.

Why did he come here? It was so out of character for him to… to what? Change his mind? Feel guilty? There had to be a reason for it… Whatever “it” was.

Then, suddenly and horribly, it clicked.

" _Have you lost weight?"_

The look on his face last night when we fucked.  _"Dean…sorry."_

" _Hey, Dean. What would you do if you were going to die tomorrow?"_

Horror and nausea warred for my attention in the core of my gut. I bent forward, resting a hand on the wall and tried not to put my other hand through the dry wall.

"God  _damn it_ , Sam."

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

I didn’t know where to look for him, and I had no one to ask. So I ran and hoped to god that he hadn’t gone too far for me to reach him. I kept running for 20, 30 minutes, unable to stop for fear that I would never be able to survive not finding him, and somehow, miraculously, I saw that ugly blue and green hat he was wearing sticking up over the top of the gray stones in the cemetery. My heart kicked painfully, and I made my way to him.

I was embarrassingly out of breath by the time I reached him. He had the corner of his brown sweater in one hand, wiping away the dirt on a gravestone. My breathing drew his attention, and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"Dean? What are you doing here?"

I felt like I should yell at him, or gesture accusingly at his person to get it through the air-tight seal of his hair that I was _pissed off_. Or, that's what I wanted to do. It turned out more like me leaning on my knee with one hand and waving the other hand limply in his general direction. "You… are you… sick?" Fear twisted my insides as I said it. It grabbed a hold of my spine with both hands and wrenched painfully. I almost couldn’t bring myself to hear his answer.

Sam blinked once. "What?" He stood up, long limbs stretching out. His eyes showed worry. "Are you okay?"

"The…the drug," I clarified, inhaling deeply, trying to get myself together, catch my breath. Shit, I needed to do more cardio, less weight lifting.

"Huh?"

"I saw it this morning…in the garbage." Finally, my lungs seemed to remember how to move right. I breathed easier.

"Oh. Yeah, the heat makes me lose my appetite, so I take this pill that helps me eat. Otherwise I get headaches and stuff from low blood sugar or whatever."

For a moment I didn’t believe him. I was sure he was lying to me, because why else would he have come to see me after all this time? But then I remembered – he always did have problems with eating, and especially when temperature got too warm. It had always been a chore making sure he got enough food in him. And two bites of a salad, as I used to tell him, did _not_ count as a meal.

I wanted to mad. For him leaving this morning, for leaving all those years ago, for making me worry. But the relief I felt at knowing I wasn’t going to lose him for good drowned out any less charitable protests I had. The adrenaline that had been keeping me up rushed away from me suddenly in the wake of my assuaged fears. I crouched to the ground, rested my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. "Thank God…"

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

"My grandpa passed away last month. He'd been sick for a long time."

We sat on the steps leading out of the cemetery, the sun steadily climbing the sky. Funny how time meant less to me when I had Sam near me; a minute could be a year for all I knew or cared about it. So long as I was with him.

I leaned forward on my knees and watched idly at an ant crawling in and out of a crack on the sidewalk. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sam's legs stretched out in front of him, the lines and curves of them as graceful as I remembered. My chest tightened.

"When I was little, Grandpa used to take care of me,” Sam went on, “Since we're the only two living relatives left on my Mom's side…"

I nodded and pushed my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. It was a little damp with sweat from my run. "I remember that," I said. That was how I had found Sam's address in the school registry. I had known him in high school, and he was the only thing I remembered from my first week as a transfer student. I remembered wanting to see him, to spend time with him. That feeling had never gone away.

"So. He was the 'guy' you left me for?" I asked.

Sam frowned around the unlit cigarette perched between his lips. He pinched the rolled paper between two fingers. "You caught me." He fiddled with the cigarette, looking it over. "Well, he _was_ technically a man…"

I couldn’t feel fury or comfort at knowing there hadn’t been someone else, someone better. A strange numbness was licking at the edges of my mind. Not a bad one, like the one that had stolen over me when Sam had left. This was more like after knocking an elbow into a table corner, only after the pain faded. Not hurt, but also not pleasure.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"  I asked.

"I had my reasons."

When I didn’t say anything further, just looked at him, Sam sighed. His eyes looked green in the growing daylight, a different shade than the usual hazel.

"Think about it, Dean. You're not gay to begin with. If I hadn't gone after you, you would've had a girlfriend a long time ago." He pulled out his lighter and put the flame to his cigarette. He inhaled deeply and let it go, smoke curling out of him softly. "Instead, you ended up living with me. I thought you'd be better off if your last moment on earth was with a cute girl picking at your scabs."

I shot him a glance. "A cute girl picking my scabs?” I watched as Sam’s face grew harder. Try as I might, I couldn’t imagine anyone else in his place next to me. “I'd rather not."

Sam didn’t answer, just put the cigarette back to his lips.

"Why did you ruin my date last night?" I'd wondered that from the beginning.

When I glanced back at him, a blush had stolen across his cheeks. It made me want to touch him, hold his hand, be closer to him.

Sam scoffed after a moment and turned away. "Jeez. Sorry. Won't happen again."

"Don't worry about it." I leaned in close enough to smell the gentle scent of detergent and soap that was Sam. I reached a couple inches over and plucked the cigarette from his mouth, not moving away from him until Sam's eyes locked on me and his face reddened even more. I tossed the cigarette aside and moved back to my seat.

Sam cleared his throat a little. "My grandpa, before he passed away, he was calling out a girl's name. It wasn't my grandma." He drew a knee to his chest and dropped his chin onto it. His face was tilted down, blocked by his hair and the rim of his hat. "But even before that, I always intended to apologize to you."

"I see."

"I don't want to have any regrets in my last moment."

I couldn’t help it then. I moved until I was touching him, our sides pressed flush, and grabbed that horrible hat to lift it away from his face. He turned into me, head still lowered, and I drew him close enough that I could press my lips to his forehead. He was crying now, silently, and curled against my chest. I could feel his heartbeat strong against my body. The numbness was gone then, and it was like I had just woken up from a two year coma.

"Sorry," Sam murmured into the collar of my shirt. What for, I didn’t pause to consider. The tears, perhaps.

"I think you've apologized enough."

"Dean…" He breathed in, breath hitched like a kid who had been upset, "I can't let you go. I can't live without you in my life. I don't want to be like my grandpa and realize that when I'm at the end and I can't fix it. Even if I have to spend my last moment in our room. I just want it to be with you."

I wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and my other arm I rested around his back. Idiot. I wasn’t letting him go again either. I shouldn't have the first time.

"How about I let you pick at my scabs?" I said softly to him. I hoped he understood.

A hand curled into the front of my button-up and Sam pressed harder against me. "Okay," he said, voice quiet, "I'll scratch your back for you."

I smiled and pressed another kiss to the top of his head and held him tighter.

"But, Dean?"

I paused and listened, ready to deal with anything.

"I don't want our last meal to be a TV dinner."

"…I take it all back."

Sam laughed and his tears stopped, their tracks beginning to dry. He looked up at me, truly happy for the first time since I'd seen him again.

I didn’t care what we ended up doing when that last moment came. I would do anything so long as he was there with me.

* * *

_"I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, is the only sensible way to love." -Francois Sagan_

END

 


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